According to Paytm, the online brand stores are independent online retail stores wherein brands can control the sellers who are selling in their store, inventory, pricing and promotions. They will also be able to run promotional campaigns and tag their physical stores, enabling them to generate sales for their offline channel through this online store.

“From a customer perspective, the shopping experience on these stores is far superior, since the brands directly engage with customers, just like in offline stores,” Paytm Vice-President, Amit Bagaria, was quoted by The Economic Times as saying.

He added that the stores were designed in a way that it gives complete flexibility to brands in deciding the look of the store.

The idea behind setting up these stores is to make sure that no fakes are sold on the site, and no unrealistic discounts given to the consumer by fraud sellers.

Last year, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company had even de-listed 3,200 sellers for frauds, but brands were still distressed over the dilution of their image, hence the setting up of brand-managed stores on the website.

Meanwhile, Paytm will also let sellers who are not authorised by the brand to still be able to compete through their own seller store outside the brand store – a true reflection of the Indian marketplace.

TMall, owned by Alibaba, has done this in China. Brands like P&G, Adidas, UNIQLO, GAP, Nine West, Ray-Ban, Dell, Samsung, Logitech, Lipton, etc have exclusive stores on TMall. Paytm would be the Indian version of Alibaba.

Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Financial have a substantial stake in Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications.